Melt Away Anxiety with Tibetan Sandalwood Incense

I’ve never really been into incense. The only people I knew who used incense with stoners or hippies, or stoner-hippies — basically that one dude with dreads in the dorms who everyone wished would stop using “earthly oils” and finally just take a damn shower.

Andy Samberg. Spot on brother.

However, my views on incense changed after my cousin gave me this pack of Tibetan Sandalwood incense as a Christmas present. $14 on Amazon for 30 sticks.

The product description is hilarious. Check it out and you’ll know what I mean.

This stuff works.

More than just a scent, it soothes the mind and body by helping melt away anxiety.

How I use incense to bounce back from an anxious state.

Whenever I feel any tension or anxiety, I like to retreat to my meditation cushion for 10-15 minutes. I light one of these babies, plug in headphones and listen to either soothing classical or meditation music. I give myself permission to just sit, breathe, and observe my current undesired situation without any judgement.

Within minutes, my initial short shallow breaths transition into deeper, relaxed breaths. With each deep inhalation, I absorb the calming effect of the incense and music, and find my way back to the stillness that comes with full acceptance of my reality as it is.

After I become conscious of having returned to that deep inner peace, which is at the core within all of us, I sit for one more focused minute. Usually by this time the tension in my face has completely gone away and my mind returns back to its natural, clear-thinking, happy state. I get up, put out the incense, and smile, thinking of how silly it was when I let the illusory grip of fear consume me just moments before…

Fear always feels so real when you accept it as a part of you, but then looks like a complete joke when observing it objectively from a peaceful state.

This is how I feel after realizing that I’ve been tricked by negative beliefs and fear.

Whenever you are overwhelmed, remember that you are the only one in control of your mind and therefore the only one in control of your emotions.

NOTHING, no matter how threatening it may feel, has any power over how you CHOOSE to allow it to affect you.

You can build up an immunity to the pains of this world by loving, forgiving, and accepting yourself unconditionally. When you “know thyself” you are fully accepting your strengths, weaknesses, and reactionary tendencies. It’s at the point when you can start working to fill in the gaps to create the YOU that you want to become.

To know, means to have no doubt. By knowing yourself you plug the holes that doubt tries to use to burrow its negative suggestions into your mind like a virus, confining you to fear. Joy, love, excitement, and inner peace IS the right path, and therefore IS the antidote to fear. Both fear and love cannot exist simultaneously.

Choose to STAY UP!

And when you start mastering yourself, your unshakable inner love will effortlessly expand to help free the people in your life from their own false worlds of fear. All you need to do is be your true self, which is achieved by living a life that embraces hope and joy. Consciously choosing to stay in this state as often as possible inspires others by giving them the permission to choose the same state for their own lives.

When feeling off, should you light up a stick of incense and just breathe?